“She is beautiful,” acknowledged Mr. Beaumaris. “But that’s not it.”
“Well, what is it?”
He reflected. “She is the most enchanting little wretch I ever encountered,” he said. “When she is trying to convince me that she is up to every move in the social game, she contrives to appear much like any other female, but when, as happens all too often for my comfort, her compassion is stirred, she is ready to go to any lengths to succour the object of her pity. If I marry her, she will undoubtedly expect me to launch a campaign for the alleviation of the lot of climbing-boys, and will very likely turn my house into an asylum for stray curs.”
“Oh, she will, will she?” said her grace, staring at him with knit brows. “Why?”
“Well, she has already foisted a specimen of each on to me,” he explained. “No, perhaps I wrong her. Ulysses she certainly foisted on to me, but the unspeakable Jemmy I actually offered to take under my protection.”
The Duchess brought her hand down on the arm of her chair. “Stop trying to gammon me!” she commanded. “Who is Ulysses, and who is Jemmy?”
“I have already offered to make you a present of Ulysses,” Mr. Beaumaris reminded her. “Jemmy is a small climbing-boy whose manifest wrongs Miss Tallant is determined to set right. I wish you might have heard her telling Bridlington that he cared for nothing but his own comfort, like all the rest of us; and asking poor Charles Fleetwood to imagine what his state might now be had he been reared by a drunken foster-mother, and sold into slavery to a sweep. Alas that I was not privileged to witness her encounter with the sweep! I understand that she drove him from the house with threats of prosecution. I am not at all surprised that he cowered before her: I have seen her disperse a group of louts.”
“She sounds to me an odd sort of a gal,” remarked her grace. “Is she a lady?”
“Unquestionably.”
“Who’s her father?”